why S can’t see his children and wife

*unpacked suitcase from failed attempt to cross the border to Egypt, to visit family.

The closed borders affect Palestinians in so many ways. The most obvious and deadly affects are the barring entry of aid into Gaza, though it is apparently stockpiled on the Israeli and Egyptian sides, foods rotting and expiring, needed blankets and clothing sitting where not needed.

The closed borders also mean medical patients aren’t getting out, just as its been for much of the last 3 years, since Hamas was elected and the world sealed up Gaza under the inadequate descriptions “blockade” and merely a “siege”.

But his family is in the West Bank and he hasn’t seen them for about 4 years, since they were last briefly able to visit Gaza. He hasn’t seen his real home, in Bethlehem, since he was exiled to Gaza 7 years ago.

His desperate hope recently was to meet his wife and children in Egypt. Just for a week, but better than nothing.

When the Rafah border with Egypt opened for a few days last week, allowing out and in but a fraction of a fraction of the many who need out/in,S. was down there, trying to cross. He actually had a reason: an ill friend that needs accompaniment to an Egyptian hospital where he should have heart surgery…. Because, unlike our free nations where we can travel across the border for cheaper shopping if that’s the initiative, S. cannot travel out for the reason of seeing his wife and kids.

S. smiled his sad-eyed smile and welcomed, welcomed, welcomed us into his home (ahlan, ahlan, ahlan!) the expression goes. And he was sincere in his welcoming, but his disappointment was evident: “I didn’t get to cross,” he said. “Another time, inshallah.”

But it always rings loudly and, plainly wrong to me, to us: why another time? why not any time? why not like any person in any country, the right to cross borders? and how, how, how, does he survive each day away from the children and wife he adores?

International Journalism Award From Mexican Press Club March 2017

about me

Eva Bartlett is an independent writer and rights activist with extensive experience in Syria and in the Gaza Strip, where she lived a cumulative three years (from late 2008 to early 2013). She documented the 2008/9 and 2012 Israeli war crimes and attacks on Gaza while riding in ambulances and reporting from hospitals.
Since April 2014, she has visited Syria 7 times, including two months in summer 2016 and one month in Oct/Nov 2016 and her latest visit in June 2017 (to Aleppo, Homs, al-Waer, Madaya, al-Tall, Damascus).
Her early visits included interviewing residents of the Old City of Homs, which had just been secured from militants, and visiting historic Maaloula after the Aramaic village had been liberated of militants. In December 2015, Eva returned to old Homs to find life returning, small shops opened, some of the damaged historic churches holding worship anew, and citizens preparing to celebrate Christmas once again.
On her 5th visit in June-August 2016, she went twice to Aleppo, also visiting: liberated Palmyra; Masyaf to interview survivors of the terrorist attacks on Aqrab and Adra; survivors of the May 23 terrorist attacks on Jableh & Tartous; and the Barzeh district of Damascus, as well as returning again to Maaloula and Latakia.
On her sixth visit to Syria, in October and November, she visited Aleppo twice more, as well as areas around Damascus. The testimonies Eva gathered in Aleppo starkly contrasted narratives corporate media had been asserting.
On her seventh visit to Syria in June 2017, she revisited Aleppo, including going to eastern areas formerly terrorist-occupied, finding that hospitals had been militarized, basements turned into prisons. She also went to the highly-propagandized over village of Madaya, as well as al-Waer, Homs, and al-Tall.
Many of her published Syria writings, videos, photos can be found at this link:
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/syria/
A more detailed account of her activism and writings can be found here:
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/about-me/